Meal Planning

Does anyone meal plan? If so, can you please give me a few tips on how you do it?

I basically sit down before I do my shopping list. I see what I have in the fridge, freezer and cupboard and go from there. I have about 10 meals which are on high rotation (easy thing that take less than 20 mins to prepare) and I try to make a new dish every Monday night so we don't get bored. If it gets DH approval (he's very fussy! :p ) then I will make it again.

Yep, I am a bit obsessive about my meal plans!

We have around 40 meals that get the DH tick of approval that get rotated over a month.

There are some standard faves that get repeated in a month (spag bol, cos we all love it)......

All I did was spreadsheet all of our tried and true fave meals, then classified them (ie fish, beef, lamb, veggo etc) , then re-sorted them over a months calendar, so we get a huge variety, but I know exactly what to shop for and what to cook for.

(It does sound obesssive, but otherwise I go barmy.........I started it when Lexie was first born.....it means we all get a great cooked meal, the pantry/freezer is alwasys stocked with what we need, shopping is easy, & it means we utilise seasonal veg properly, and it means I feel organised.......)

OMG, Lucy, you are a super mum. My DP laughed at me when I said I was going do up a meal plan. I have also considered shopping online to save me impulse buying. He just absolutely cracked up laughing over the online shopping and said that I was just being lazy.
You know what, you have inspired me. I am going to prove him wrong.

I have shopped online! I did it a couple of weeks ago and I love it! I HATE grocery shopping and I had a particularly bad week, so I just did it all online and it was delivered the next day. I can highly recommend EzyShop in WA. Really fresh fruit and veges and the meat was good too. It was a little more expensive than going to Woolies, but so convenient! And I didn't have to do it with a crying baby!

Lucy - you are amazing! So organised. I hope I would be able to organise myself that well. I will give it a try! We seem to be living on spag bol and lasagne at the moment, with the exception of a curry that I have just tried in the slow cooker!

I am fanatical about meal planning! I believe it makes me a more efficient shopper! I go as far as to plan lunches as well - otherwise DH buys lunch... I've also done online shopping and found it a blessing - totally avoids impulse buys! Only downside is I find it more expensive...

You know what, even though my 3 children aren't as time consuming because they are older, I am still going to give the online shopping thing a go. DP will never know how the groceries are bought anyway and never has paid attention to it either. It was only that I brought it up about o/s that he said I was being lazy. Besides, another thing that I think is good, I won't get all those scratches and dents on my car from careless people at the car park..

Jo thanks for the tip on EzyShop I'm off to check it out now :)

Lucy can you fly over and sort me out i am hopeless at the moment with sorting things out for meal times. I'm going to try and do a meal plan for the next two weeks.

BellyBelly has a meal planner sheet which you can download (was going to include it in the next update but since you are talking about it LOL). You can print this and stick it on your fridge.

https://www.bellybelly.com.au/downlo...al-planner.pdf

If you have any suggestions on what can be added let me know. Playing with a few ideas at the moment.

oooh looks good... off to have a play :)

Kelly that looks great.

Hehehe thanks hon :) I put it together after seeing a few different things I liked - wanted to add more but couldn't fit it all into an A4 page... have some ideas.... :)

I've updated the meal planner, let me know if you think its better now. Any suggestions you might have are good :) Let me know your general thoughts of it too.

thanks for this now i just have to get ink and paper for my printer lol. i so want to get back into this its just working it out on my budget what i need are meal idea's ones that use every day stuff that that is cheap to get hold of if you get what i mean like not a huge amount of spices that i will only use for that one meal and probably havnt heard of lol i realise my initual shop to get everything on the list would be high then i want the top ups etc and usual weekly top up to be not so high im on a tight tight budget at the mo which is soon to ease in the next 8-10 weeks so am looking at having it organised by then and ready to get up and going if not sooner. thanks

When I am super organised I have a planner that has the days of the week in the left hand column and across the top it has "lunch", "dinner" and "prepare". DH and I aways have a planned cooked lunch (we are not big bread eaters so sambos are out) and the "prepare" colum is for stuff like "take meat out of freezer" or "buy fresh herbs on way home" - things I can do today that make tomorrow easier.

I have a huge amount of cookbooks so I am constantly scourng for new meal ideas.

Lately I have beem playing around with Recipie Centre 5.0, a free program you can doown load that saves recipies and lets you create shopping lists and meal plans AND TALLIES UP THE INGREDIENTS AS YOU GO! Lucy this would be perfect for you cause if you need say 500g mince for Wednesday's spag bol and 500g mince for Friday's meatloaf, it automatically tells you (in your shopping list) that you need I kig of mince IYKWIM.

I have over stocked my pantry ATM so am trying to povvo-feed us right now, but once I am cleared out I will get Recipie Centre going in full swing.

Just found an awesome site to help with inspiration as to what to put onto the meal plan.
mealsforyou dot com, then click on Handy meal Collections on the left. Yum. :D

I'm about to sit down and do a 6 week rotation of food, a girlfriend and myself will be doing a monthly shop in the Lockyer Valley, so we need to know what F&V and meats to buy. We decided to do it this way, as the food was fresher (most of the F&V is from the area & so is the meat) and a hell of a lot cheaper (not that money is an issue for us - but freshness is).

So Kelly - thanks for the planner. I'm also going to do the excel spreadsheet trick with the menus etc.

:)

lol um no altho it depends on what i can afford that fortnight. i always try and think of meals that can be frozen or re-used so my hubby can take the left overs to work.

Meal planning is such a tricky thing to achieve successfully, sometimes you buy to much, sometimes you buy too little, and sometimes you just change your mind! it would be great to use a service that could help with all these problems! my kids always tell me they want Mac Cheese, or Sausages for dinner, then we get to table and there is a giant moan.. "oh not sausages!" does anyone else get this?

kc

Am just playing with the demo of MacGourmet Deluxe. Looks good!

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Easily create, build and share your recipe collection. Make notes about your favorite wines; plan meals for a day or a week and then sync to iCal. Get the nutritional values of foods, recipes and individual servings by accessing the USDA database included in MacGourmet Deluxe. Print out shopping lists or export them to your PDA. Find recipes online and add them to your collection using MacGourmet’s intuitive features. Publish recipes to your blog or .mac account. Even use your family recipes to create your own professional-looking, bound cookbook!

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Any of you other Mac girls looked at this? Looks a bit fiddly to enter some recipes.. altho I haven't looked at the import function yet.

But I think it would make recipe sharing nice & easy!

NB. I haven't looked at the purchase price yet.. still on demo.

ETA: hmm... it's US$44.95. Will need to make the most of the demo before purchasing me thinks!

bugger! i cant open the bellybelly meal planner :(

i saved it to my computer, but when i open it up, its just a big jumble of letters :(

is there anyother way i can get a copy? could someone email it to me?

Rach, I have just emailed you the planner. No doubt you will already have lots of copies, but just wanted to be sure you got it.

i really need to get my butt into gear and start a meal planner!

I cant open the meal planner either, I need adobe 9 - grrr - could some one please email me and I will forward it to one of the other girls to print for me - Thank you

I really need to do this, I can never think of anything for dinner. How on earth do you girls have so many things on your list!!!!!!

Roryrory- how's recipe center going?

could someone email me a copy of this planner kelly made???

please :pray:

Its on the 1st page of this thread, I have just printed it off. Mmain problem is that DH may or may not like a food at any given time ie. today he might like spag bol but tomorrow he may not! (yes he is very fussy)

Hey MM- oh yes i know but my comp wont let me open it. :doh:

Hey hey -

I am doing my shopping online (OMG I LOVE) - Which brings me too needing a dinner reciepe for every night of the week so that I know what I need to buy and not have to go out and bits and peices (it doesn't help when i am trying to save money :-P)

So I would like YOUR 7 day meal planner - so i can make up a few... I'm even thinking of laminating a 7 day planner - and on anoter page listing a whole heap of dinners and getting the kids go choose :-)

I'll start off -

Mon - Spag bog
Tues - sausages, mash an vegies
Wed - sweet and sour chicken stir fry
Thurs - slow cook meal
Fri - Fish an chip
Sat - Get your own :-)
Sun - lasangua and Potato bake

What is some more :-)

I will merge this with the meal planning thread so it doesn't get lost :)

Thanks Rouge :-)

I have just started doing a meal planner. It's a work in progress. I decided to categorise each day as something and then pick recipes to cook. I have also included what I picked for this week.

Mon - ? Haven't decided yet. (Lemon & Herb Pasta & Chicken Salad - was sunday's meal but we got invited to the in-laws)
Tues - Fish Night (Crumbed fish & salad wraps)
Wed - Chicken Night (Chicken Schnitzels & Salad)
Thurs - Steak Night (Pork Chops with vegies)
Fri - Slow Cooker Day (Cheats Chicken Cacciatore from Best recipes)
Sat - Stir Fry Night (Had planned a curry but DH has other plans this week so will prob have sunday instead)
Sun - Roast/Pasta Night (Spag Bolognaise - will prob have monday due to sat night)

This is only my second week but so far it's working well. :crossfingers:

I meal plan but i dont allocate days for meals if that makes sense. Like i'll have a list of 8 or so meals for the week, buy the ingredients for them, then cross them off as we eat them.

I sit down at some stage during the week and plan for the following week, i have a list of things i need to get from the butcher & grocery store. I try to stick to the shopping lists i write out...TRY lol. I actually enjoy grocery shopping tho :hide:

I love meal planning. I now have an awesome place to buy meat from so we'll be set for a while!

Next 7 days will probably go like this:

Tuesday: Sticky Chicken Wingettes w/fried rice
Wednesday: Swedish Meatballs w/curly fries
Thursday: Probably take out as we have to go shopping for Eucharist stuff
Friday: Goat Curry (Kids will eat at T-Ball)
Saturday: Red Lentil & Veg Soup
Sunday: Probably a Roast
Monday: Indian Curry Night (Beef Madras, Butter Chicken, Vegetable Korma)

I hate doing the same stuff over and over again, so I really mix it up. My recipe collection is HUGE!

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I meal plan but i dont allocate days for meals if that makes sense. Like i'll have a list of 8 or so meals for the week, buy the ingredients for them, then cross them off as we eat them.

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That is how I am making it work for us. I make sure I have a mix of meals that can be cooked quickly or that need the arvo in the oven. I try to match them to the day that suits, but sometimes plans change, so I need to switch around.

OMG Rouge - can i come to your house for dinner! LoL! they sound fantastic!

I have done up a thing on my computer, which i will print and laminate... a meal plan thingy... and now trying to get a list of reciepes (think i might go annoy Rouge :-P) and then sunday I am going to get the kids to decide what they want for each day :-) And then choose one helper for the night as well... So then the kids get involved with what is cooking... and maybe there might be less food not eaten :-P Can only try!

Rowleen I love your idea's too!!!

Just signing up to pick up some tips.

If Lucy is still on BB can you give us all some of your 40 meal ideas?

Or anyone else for that matter. Maybe if everyone sticks up all the recipes they put in their meal planner and we could swap recipes or something, I'm just new to meal planning so will need a bit of help getting started!

I love meal planning...I'm doing it right now LOL. I usually only do a 7 day meal rotation as it's just DF and I, so we don't need to be TOO organised. This week looks something like this:

Monday (tonight) Lamb Tagine
Tuesday: Spicy sausage and goat's cheese with fettucine
Wednesday: Beef Stroganof
Thursday: Haven't decided yet, some variation of lamb chops
Friday: Takeout, woohoo ;)
Saturday: Home-made pizza night, probably a salmon, caper, marscepone pizza, a zucchini and sundried tomato and a mediterainian lamb and rockette. Nom.
Sunday: Pfft, whatever. Feeling lazy. Thai chicken and noodle salad probably.

I usually just look at what we have in the pantry and base it off of that. Atm I'm cooking our meals at my mums house because she's overseas and my 18 yo brother wont feed himself if I don't cook :rolleyes: DF and I usually buy meat in a fortnightly or monthly shop in bulk from the market and freeze into portions (for example, if mince is on special in bulk, we'll get it and divide it into 1 meal portions and freeze in bags). We keep the pantry items updated regularly and constantly add to what we have so that we have a broad range of things. We tend not to buy greens etc in a weekly shop, we usually pick up one or two nights worth of fresh ingredients on the day we need them as we have Footscray market right on the way home, and I've found with the way I plan our meals it works out cheaper to simply pick up (for example) two carrots and a lime than buy a big bag of carrots, because they'd probably not get used as well itms?

I also use my weekends to bake brownies, cakes, biccies etc so that we have something for desert or something to nom on whenever we want...either that or a self-saucing pud is easy to knock up after dinner.

I am in a rut with the nightly meals and have overwhelmed myself looking in recipe books and online.

I am on leave without pay for another year too so am looking for good value meals too. I can't even remember what we used to cook over the years.

What does your weekly dinner menu consist of?